


Assassination

by thaliaarche



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 17:22:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15845877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thaliaarche/pseuds/thaliaarche
Summary: “I do hope this is your first assassination. Otherwise, this is just embarrassing.”





	Assassination

“I do hope this is your first assassination.” A slight young man, barely more than a boy, blocks the entrance to the Queen’s private rooms. “Otherwise, this is just embarrassing.”

The invader’s just slunk up a sheer metal wall and is currently straddling a windowsill; he kicks the outer leg up and swings it inside before dropping to his feet with a dancer’s grace. He lingers there a moment, leaning against the ledge, and then speaks, his voice little more than a purr. “Tonight’s Watchdog, I assume.”

“Surprised I’m not dead?” The guard jauntily tosses his head and more subtly reaches for his knife. “I’m far better acquainted with poisons than the rest of my . . . _peers_.” He laces the word with a sneer before adding. “I caught the taste of belladonna in my wine, and I took the antidote before a single symptom struck.”

The trespasser receives the speech in silence. He stands still except for the slight tilt of his head; his face is masked except for his growing smile, teeth glinting in the torchlight.

The silence stretches on.

“Aren’t you going to do anything?”

“It’s your move, Watchdog.”

Ciel lunges. He snarls, pinning him against the window, snapping at him with his teeth, letting him feel the sharp edge of his knife against his tender, delicate neck. “How’s that for a move?”

The scapegrace replies by laughing. “It’s most entertaining.”

“Watch your tongue!” He digs in the blade a little harder, molecules away from drawing blood.

The trespasser inhales sharply, and their eyes lock, blood-red and blue.

“Won’t you search me now?”

After a moment, the guard blinks and breaks away. As brusquely as he can, he says, “But of course.”

He keeps one hand on his blade, and with the other he pats down the trespasser’s black suit. It’s indecently well-fitted, and he quickly finds there’s nothing hidden any place obvious, not even—

“That’s not a sword in any but the metaphorical sense.”

The guard narrows his eyes. “Don’t be obscene.”

He promptly thrusts his hips forward in an exceedingly obscene manner, and with a grimace the guard jumps back. Despite the blade still pressed to his neck, the trespasser steps forward and leans down, his black bangs forming a veil around them.

“Haven’t you ever wondered about obscenities, hm?” He chuckles deep in his throat. “Haven’t you wondered what it’s like to do what you want, not what the Queen wants, not what your parents want? Don’t you wonder what it’s like to be a real person, someone other than the younger son? Someone other than _not Ciel —_”

“Shut up,” he growls. “You know nothing about me.”

“Don’t I?”

“Ah!” His eyes light up. “Are you trying to make me kill you before the torturers get their hands on you? There’ll be quite the investigation, you know, into which anarchist cause you’re championing—"

“As if I care about people,” he sniffs.

“So you’re in it for the money.”

“For the power, more precisely, but money’s not a bad way to obtain it.”

The guard draws a line in red along his collarbone, not enough to do real damage, but enough to hurt. The trespasser winces— at last, a genuine reaction.

“Tell me,” the Watchdog murmurs, his tone still decidedly conversational, “what madman’s paying you off to kill the queen? Or madwoman, I mustn’t discriminate.”

“No one is. I dislike assassination, it’s so inelegant.”

The invader whips his hand up, and inexplicably the guard’s knife flies into his grasp. No, not inexplicably— he must have strong magnets sewed into his gloves, which might also explain how he scaled the wall outside.

Though it can’t explain how he bypassed the other seven layers of security.

The guard has only a split second to contemplate all this until his blade is at _his_ throat.

“I’m not above common murder, though,” his attacker says thoughtfully.

The Watchdog spits on his mask.

He breaks out laughing again. “You aren’t scared, are you?”

“I would not thus disappoint the Phantomhive legacy,” he replies stoically.

“Only the legacy, hm? No mention of the queen?”

“What good is it killing me? I’ve already raised the alarm,” the Watchdog retorts, pointedly ignoring the question. “All the Queen’s guards from all over the castle are running here to capture you.”

He doesn’t laugh at that, only smiles slyly. “I was rather counting on it.”

With one strong kick he sends the Watchdog stumbling into the opposite wall. After a moment of deliberation he throws the knife to his left, casting it far down the hallway. “You owe me.”

The words echo through the room with supernatural resonance.

“And,” he adds flippantly, “I’d recommend pretending you were poisoned, if you’d like to save face.”

With one graceful flip he somersaults back out the window, again disappearing into the darkness.

The Watchdog scrambles back to his feet and checks his pockets and— damn. His copy of the key to the Queen’s Vault, the protection of which is the main duty of the Phantomhives, has been lifted from his pocket, likely while the bastard was misdirecting him with his flirtation. He runs to the knife and begins carving up his armor, not to hurt himself but to at least leave evidence of a valiant fight, even as he tries to choose his words for explaining they’re dealing not with a assassin but with a particularly clever cat burglar.

How lucky the Vault is his brother’s responsibility now.

As the other guards at last burst into the room with a shout, he leans out the window, finding nothing but darkness, and wonders how his new acquaintance will come to collect.


End file.
